Test flying an Aerotrek A220

Thank heaven January is almost over – I’m sick of winter in Indiana!! (If you’re in the northeast I’m sooo sorry!!) Today….finally….after days of dreary weather the clouds opened up and low and behold, we saw the sun!!! I’m happy again! The Champ’s happy again! Life is good!

Incredibly, we saw the sun today – on a weekend!!

Not one to waste a great flying day, I was incredibly lucky and got to fly to BFR to play with an Aerotrek A220 LSA.

Got to fly this today

Pre-flights are always important but you might want to pay a little extra attention to the wings on an Aerotrek. Folding wings make it easy to store in tight hangar spaces or take home and put in your garage but also make you inclined to double and triple check those 4 cotter pins!

Preflight – check!

Am I the only person who turns into a pretzel getting into a different airplane?

Turns out not near as hard to get into as the clipped wing Cub that gave me a nasty bruise yesterday!

No problem, piece of cake.

Actually, this was pretty easy. The rear end goes first, push the stick far right, swing the legs in, push the stick left, right leg swings over and your in! Thank you Scott for directions!

So off we go. Taxi to Runway 13, full power from the Rotax 912, climb like a bat outta hell and up we go. Nice smooth engine, very light controls, and did some turns up to 3000′ to feel out the rudder. Stalls were a non event with the nose nibbling up and down and absolutely no sign of a wing wanting to drop off to either side. Very, very gentle little bird.

It’s a good looking airplane from any angle

So that was my fun flying day. Got back to MQJ, did a few touch and go’s in the Champ and decided the fuel indicator in the nearly straight down position probably meant I should call it a day. Always with my little Casio handy, I shot this last picture driving away from the airport this evening.

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